the autumn dance

It was drizzling by the time we made our way from the city into the woods. Drizzly autumn days have a special quality to them. All the colors are brighter, richer and more saturated.

Mother Nature came over and laid some new flooring while we were away in the city. She did an amazing job!

The geese just keep coming and going. There is a pond pit stop just to the north of us.

A couple of hours after sunset owl mates fly into the oak tree. The calls were throaty and long and flooding the still area around us.

The wind changed bringing warmer temperatures from the south earlier this afternoon. It supposedly 62 degrees and only dropping another ten tonight but I'm not fooled. I'm wearing my knit cap and fleece tights. I'm not chancing cold. I'm hopefully acclimating as the season changes.

The moon comes up and the air turns blue. All the leaves that have fallen to the ground are reflecting the shimmer of the moonlight in the raindrops left undisturbed after today's rainfall. A frog jumps on through. There is no wind. It is a still night. It is a clear night. The only sounds are the geese honking on and off. But there is the steady drop of leaves, some pelting me, others diving into the open fire. It is a magical night under the super moon. It is slightly past peak out in these autumn woods and many trees are laying bare, the branches further sculpted by the eerie yet ethereal blue moonlight.

We dance when Buddy Red Bow's Indian Love Song plays on WOJb. That song gets me every time. I remember all the different seasons when we have danced under the trees to this song: slip dancing on the icy snow, boots sucked into the spring mud. Tonight the leaves rustle under our feet. Tonight a memory of autumn forms up through my legs and fingertips as I slowly twirl under the stars, holding the hand of the man I love close to my heart. The geese honk in applause as he dips me to steal a kiss. It's a much needed moment of reconnection. With him. With the woods. With the moon. With the earth.